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Weve put up with a lot as a nation over the years. But whatever your political party, the latest antics from President Trump, during a global pandemic which has killed more than 25,000 Americans, seal the deal: We need out of this mess for good.

Our threshold for the absolutely absurd and the inarguably indefensible has been fairly high, considering just how far Trump has pushed the boundaries of decency and incompetence.

Since the day he was elected, there has been a near constant-barrage of collateral damage all the stuff that came with him when a mere 27% of the eligible voting population ushered him into office.

There has been the unconventional and brash governing style, a revolving door of staffers and Cabinet members, a steep learning curve in the rules of governance, an inability to admit to failures, a hostility toward the press, etc.

And some of the fallout has been truly galling, from his administrations anti-immigrant policies that put kids in cages at the border to his clandestine attempts to interfere in our elections.

The baggage has not just been for his detractors, but for his supporters, too, who put up with his juvenile tweets, his unhinged attacks on perceived enemies (including even a teenage climate activist with Aspergers syndrome) and a politics of distraction that kept many of their favored policies from being accomplished.

From Republicans point of view, obsession with bringing down Trump also unleashed an unending flood of investigations by Democrats and a failed attempt to remove him from office.

As consumed as we were by the dizzying rollercoaster that has been Trumps presidency, all of that looks like kids stuff compared to the carnival ride from hell we are all on now.

This wasnt inevitable. On a practical level, we could be in better shape today had another administration been better equipped to deal with this pandemic. As two epidemiologists write in the New York Times this week, we could have saved thousands of lives had coronavirus been taken more seriously, earlier.

[A]n estimated 90% of the cumulative deaths in the United States from COVID-19, at least from the first wave of the epidemic, might have been prevented by putting social distancing policies into effect two weeks earlier, on March 2, when there were only 11 deaths in the entire country.

This administration was woefully and unforgivably unprepared for this pandemic, and this president has spent weeks dodging accountability for clear failures, which I outlined in an earlier column time and resources that could have been better used to catch us up and control the outbreak.

Instead, Trump has used this horrific health crisis to stoke more division, to attack governors and the media, to boost his reelection campaign and to needlessly confuse the American public. Even if you can accept that his administration was unprepared at the beginning, there is no excuse for his behavior since then.

There is no excuse for turning a press briefing into a campaign rally, where Trump used an opportunity to inform the American people to instead play a bizarre video of mashup clips attacking his critics.

There is no excuse for Trumps shadow war on experts at a time when we need them most. He has contradicted his own doctors and scientists publicly and privately, and sewn a public distrust in any authority but him. Hes allowed his followers to stoke nonsensical conspiracy theories about Dr. Anthony Fauci, an esteemed public health official, even retweeting a #FireFauci tweet.

And there is no excuse for Trumps brazen and unconstitutional power grab. Trump has tried to bully the states either into doing what he wants or praising his response. And his latest exercise in despotism When somebodys president of the United States, the authority is total was a disaster. Republicans and Democrats alike clapped back. Even some of his staunchest conservative defenders hammered the assertion and eventually he was forced to retreat.

This is utter lunacy. Why are we putting up with it?

Weve grown complacent about Trumps obvious incompetence and unmanageable mania, numbed by the inundation of idiocy over the past three years. But now its costing American lives, and we are all still in the crosshairs of his ineptitude.

Fortunately, theres a mechanism to stop the insanity and excise the cancerous rot from atop our leadership in November. But Im not sure that we can afford to wait that long.

secuppdailynews@yahoo.com

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Donald Trump is the virus: His coronavirus response confirms how toxic he is for our nation - Chicago Sun-Times

Donald Trump called Nancy Pelosi a sick puppy on Monday, after the House speaker said the presidents mishandling of the coronavirus crisis would contribute to deaths in the US that might have been avoided.

Shes a sick puppy thats a terrible thing to say, Trump said in a rambling hour-long call-in interview to the cable show Fox & Friends. My poll numbers are the highest theyve ever been because of her.

While the president was attacking his adversaries, the top infectious-disease expert in the US warned that smaller cities were about to witness a rapid acceleration in coronavirus cases.

New Orleans and Detroit are showing signs that theyre going to take off and other, smaller cities are percolating, Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABC News.

According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, by Monday nearly 143,000 Covid-19 cases had been confirmed in the US, with more than 2,500 deaths. New York is by far the state worst hit, with nearly 60,000 cases and about 1,000 deaths.

As the emergency has accelerated, Trump has stepped up his war of words with Democrats and the media, in what critics see as an attempt to distract from the administrations failings in confronting the virus.

Widespread testing remains unavailable in most of the US, healthcare workers and local leaders raise a daily alarm about dire shortages of medical equipment, and state leaders have imposed a patchwork of restrictions or declined to impose restrictions in what emergency response experts have described as a vacuum of federal leadership.

In news conferences, Trump has swung between false assurance that business as normal would resume by Easter and crediting himself with avoiding what early models showed could be a worst-case scenario of millions of deaths.

In his interview on Monday, Trump told the Fox News hosts he had saved the country from deaths like you have never seen before.

Pelosi told CNN on Sunday that the presidents denial at the beginning was deadly and said his delay in getting equipment to where its needed is deadly As the president fiddles, people are dying.

Trump also repeated a baseless claim he made on Sunday, accusing states including New York, which has had to erect emergency medical facilities in Central Park and move in refrigerator trucks to temporarily store bodies, of squandering medical equipment.

Trumps charges drew fire from New Yorks mayor.

I find that insulting to our healthcare workers, Bill de Blasio told CNN. I find it insensitive.

What the president should be doing is praising our healthcare workers, not suggesting somehow theyre doing something wrong with the supplies that have been sent. Thats just insensitive and its unhelpful.

The long-running feud between Trump and New York state leaders simmered as dramatic pictures emerged of the US navy hospital ship USNS Comfort arriving in New York harbor. The ship, which can accommodate about 1,000 patients, will not treat coronavirus victims but will take other patients to relieve hospitals on land.

Welcome to New York, USNS Comfort, Governor Andrew Cuomo tweeted. We knew from the outset that expanded hospital capacity was critical. We asked and the federal government answered.

Other states continued to ramp up their responses. The governor of Maryland issued a stay-at-home order effective from Monday evening, becoming the 23rd state to do so. Michigan extended unemployment programs to workers who do not qualify for state benefits, including independent contractors, the self-employed and seasonal workers.

Vermont issued an order requiring any person coming from outside the state for anything other than an essential purpose to home-quarantine for 14 days. Arizona announced that schools would remain closed through the end of the spring term. And the Republican governor of Florida, who has resisted issuing a statewide stay-at-home order, urged residents in four southern counties to stay home through mid-May.

Fauci said at the weekend the US could see more than a million cases and suffer 100,000 to 200,000 deaths. I dont want to see it, Id like to avoid it, but I wouldnt be surprised if we saw 100,000 deaths, he said on Monday.

As recently as late February, Trump claimed publicly that the virus would simply disappear. But on Fox & Friends he credited his administration with avoiding a death toll in the millions.

Thats a lot, he said.

Political leaders from both parties have indicated that Washington could follow its $2tn coronavirus relief package with more stimulus bills, but Trump on Monday criticized Democrats demands for protections of the 2020 election in November.

As part of the initial relief package, Democrats sought a provision, later discarded, that would allow all voters to cast ballots by mail.

The things they had in there were crazy, Trump told Fox & Friends. They had levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it youd never have a Republican elected in this country again.

See more here:
Trump lashes out at critics as Fauci warns New Orleans and Detroit will 'take off' - The Guardian

Donald Trump admitted on Monday that making it easier to vote in America would hurt the Republican party.

The president made the comments as he dismissed a Democratic-led push for reforms such as vote-by-mail, same-day registration and early voting as states seek to safely run elections amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Democrats had proposed the measures as part of the coronavirus stimulus. They ultimately were not included in the $2.2tn final package, which included only $400m to states to help them run elections.

The things they had in there were crazy. They had things, levels of voting that if youd ever agreed to it, youd never have a Republican elected in this country again, Trump said during an appearance on Fox & Friends. They had things in there about election days and what you do and all sorts of clawbacks. They had things that were just totally crazy and had nothing to do with workers that lost their jobs and companies that we have to save.

Democrats often accuse Republicans of deliberately making it hard to vote in order to keep minorities, immigrants, young people and other groups from the polls. And Republicans often say they oppose voting reforms because of concerns of voter fraud which is extremely rare or concerns over having the federal government run elections. But Trumps remarks reveal how at least some Republicans have long understood voting barriers to be a necessary part of their political self-preservation.

I dont want everybody to vote, Paul Weyrich, an influential conservative activist, said in 1980. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.

Trumps Monday comments showed he saw voter suppression as part of his re-election strategy, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) said in a statement Monday. Ensuring that Americans can vote during the Covid-19 crisis is fundamental to maintaining our democracy. It is shocking that Trump is essentially admitting that when the American people vote, Republican lose, said Xochitl Hinojosa, a DNC spokeswoman. Trump knows that suppressing the vote is the only way he and Republicans win in November.

Shortly after he was elected, Trump falsely claimed he would have won the popular vote had it not been for millions of illegal votes. There is no credible evidence to support the claim. In December, a Trump campaign aide was recorded saying: Traditionally its always been Republicans suppressing votes in places. The aide later told the Associated Press he was saying that Republicans have traditionally been accused of voter suppression.

The $400m that Congress allocated so far is just a small fraction of what the Brennan Center for Justice estimated election officials need to run elections in November if coronavirus still lingers. Officials need that money to pay for postage, personnel and equipment to process an influx of mail-in ballots.

The urgency of getting election officials those resources should not be lost in the political fighting, said Myrna Perez, director of the Brennan Centers voting rights and elections program.

What cannot be lost in all the back and forth among politicians is that election administrators at the state and local level need substantial resources now to ensure that the elections in November go off smoothly and safely, she said.

See the article here:
Trump says Republicans would never be elected again if it was easier to vote - The Guardian

In a new episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the host, like many others, is hosting from home. He said that they shot on Saturday and told viewers not to feel awkward about the absence of laughing that many are used to with the regular telecast.

I started my comedy career doing standup in England, said Oliver. I am more than used to making jokes to silence.

After getting excited for being celebrated by the Tik Tok hamster he praised in the previous episode, he dove into the only thing making headlines as of late: coronavirus. In particular, he used this opportunity to continue his dragging of Donald Trump and how he has handled the crisis which has clearly gotten worse.

As more confirmed coronavirus cases begin to surface, Oliver said, The president has only recently realized the gravity of the situation. He points out that only a month ago Trump said We have it very much under control and more recently he said Ive felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. He then addressed how Trump said he wanted to open the country and economy by Easter.

Related StorySAG-AFTRA Chief David White On Union's Coronavirus Crisis Response And The Hardships Ahead - A Sobering Deadline Q&A

If you are going to pick a holiday to break a quarantine you can do a lot worse than one honoring the time Jesus was supposed to stay inside but didnt, Oliver joked about Trumps irresponsible attitude with relaxing measures way too soon.

Unlike Trump, governors are taking this crisis seriously while Floridas Ron DeSantis has not issued a statewide stay at home order. More than that, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick took things even further by agreeing with Trump about how economic damage of a lockdown is too great to bear.

If you really want to die so the U.S. economy could boom, we already have a system in place for that its called Black Friday, Oliver said in response to Patrick.

As Spain and Iran has made mass graves you can see from space and ice skating rinks serving as makeshift morgues, Oliver points out how absurd it is that conservative pundits are co-signing the idea of people sacrificing themselves for the economy specifically Glenn Beck who recently spoke passionately about the topic.

The coronavirus is not The Hunger Games, said Oliver. You cant volunteer yourself as tribute.

He continued, What Glenn Beck is doing is much darker. [He is] actively volunteering others including all people of all ages to die. Even if these guys are okay with letting the coronavirus kill as many people as it feels like so the economy is protected there are I cant believe I have to say this significant drawbacks to thousands of people dying.

Its critically important for America to be getting a clear, consistent message about the severity of the threat were currently facing, Oliver explains. That is the only way we will be able to manage this virus, contain casualties and get back to something resembling normalcy.

Oliver went on to address the extreme shortage of basic equipment like ventilators and masks that hospitals are facing. And of course, Trump isnt addressing the problem. He is minimizing them. He could have helped solve this by enacting the Defense Production Act to compel companies to produce supplies sooner but he didnt. It is only recently made GM make ventilators.

Trump has failed to give this crisis the seriousness it requires, Oliver said.

As he played clips of a medical professional getting emotional about not having the equipment they need to fight this virus he reiterates that the agony of the virus has been profound.

It didnt need to be this hard, he added. That is why it is so profoundly disheartening that we are being led through this crisis by a man who may be less equipped to deal with this historical moment than anyone in recorded history.

Oliver admits that he was rooting for Trump to do better as handling a crisis well is not inherently political. He said how he doesnt necessarily agree with Ohio Governor Mike DeWine or New York Governor Andrew Cuomo but they are doing their jobs well.

I wish I could honestly say that we are going to be fine but I dont know that, Oliver said. Most of us will be but not all of us. The number that wont is up in the air right now.

A crisis of this magnitude ends up revealing a lot about who you are as a nation and not all that is being revealed is good, he said, adding that coronavirus has exposed vulnerabilities in our medical and political systems as well as the national psyche.

At the same time, this virus has exposed reserves of real strength in this country, he reiterates with hope. Weve seen extraordinary heroism, kindness and ingenuity in the essential lines of work. He goes on to praise grocery store workers, delivery people and medical professionals who he adds should get a parade whenever we are allowed to have parades again.

What we choose to do outside of our hospitals has a direct and significant impact on what happens inside of them, he said while urging social distancing to the maximum extent so that we can make it easier for healthcare workers to do their job.It is the only way to counteract an appalling federal response, he bluntly states.

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Last Week Tonight: John Oliver Unpacks How Donald Trump Has Failed To Give Coronavirus Crisis The Seriousness It Requires - Deadline

The dire shortage of protective medical gear needed to handle the spread of coronavirus is not some great secret. For weeks, hospital administrators, medical professionals, and political leaders warned that this was a looming crisis. Increasingly, its not even looming. Over the past few days, photos have gone viral of nurses resorting to wearing trash bags and makeshift protective masks as they treat highly infectious patients.

And yet, to hear Donald Trump explain it, the current situation is remarkable only for just how extraordinary the government has been in solving it. The same day that a nurse died at one of those hospitals where giant black trash bags have been converted into hospital gowns, the president declared that when it came to filling medical equipment needs, Its hard not to be happy with the job were doing. The next day began with Trump tweeting Congratulations AMERICA! after the Senate passed a $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus plan on a unanimous vote and ended with the news that America now has more coronavirus cases than any other nation in the world.

The story is playing out in parallel universes: one where an abject crisis is causing historic economic disruption and human suffering on a global scale, and one constructed by Trump, in whichthrough his ingenuity and stewardshipAmerica is on the precipice of putting this all behind us.

As we look forward, the president said on Tuesday, we begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The next day, the number of deaths in the U.S. reached a new peak.

That Trump has built this alternate reality is not the least bit shocking. He has spent much of his life constructing and reconstructing tales of his grandeur. Public relations is his primary skill. So its only natural that he would apply it to a medical epidemic as well.

What goes underappreciated, is just how unorthodox such an approach is in politics. Under the usual constructs, no politician in his or her right mind would act in his manner. Indeed, the truism of crisis management is that leaders should avoid talking up how quickly things are improving, lest they come off as insensitive to those still suffering.

That certainly was the guiding principle in the wake of the last comparable economic disaster: the market collapse in 2008. In the early months of their administration, Barack Obama and his team found themselves navigating a difficult balancing act: selling their legislative interventions and, simultaneously, nodding to widespread suffering by concedingthat they still had work to do.

On the occasions when they would try to put a positive gloss on their record (the so-called recovery summer and the talk of green shoots of economic optimism) it would usually result in admonitions about them being detached from reality.

It was one of the biggest questions we faced, which is how to show we were on the right track without sounding out of touch, recalled Eric Schultz, who was running communications for the Democratic Partys Senate campaign arm during that cycle. Atmospherically, Republicans and the entire rightwing media were trying to talk down the economy and were obstructionists at the time. And so our ability to tell a positive story was harder in the face of that. Theyd make the case of how out of touch we were and theyd be able to find plenty of case studies to show it was true.

By the time the 2010 cycle rolled around, Obama had settled on a hackneyed electoral pitch: the economy was a car which Republicans had driven into a ditch. As he would say: Weve been pushing and shoving and sweating, trying to get this car out of the ditch while Republicans have been standing there, sipping on a Slurpee, watching us and saying, Youre not pushing hard enough!

Not surprisingly, the elections were a disaster for Democrats. And in the aftermath, some in the party criticized Obama for actually being too rosy in his salesmanship.

A metaphor about a car in the ditch when people are in trouble and angry at Wall Street is just out of touch with what is going on, Stan Greenberg, the longtime Democratic pollster said after the electoral bloodbath.

But if Obama was being too rosy back then, Trump is acting positively Pollyannaish now. After a few days of sober talk about the coronavirus spreadconceding that it could sideline Americans well into the summerhe has spent the past week describing a disease that is close to being conquered. He has talked about reopening Americas economy by Easter, overstated basic facts about the availability of treatments, tests and therapies, and blamed his predecessor and foreigners for any perceived failure, all while giving himself a perfect score for his handling of the epidemic.

To his critics, hes become the living embodiment of the this is fine memewith the only question being if he is consciously aware of the fires that surround him.

We often debated the balance between touting progress and acknowledging reality, but we almost always erred on the side of acknowledging the pain and hardship that people were experiencing as a result of the financial crisis, said Jon Favreau, Obamas former speechwriter. I suppose it was fine for Trump to brag about the economy when the economy was in fairly good shape, but a few months from now, how will the absurd self-congratulation appear to people whove lost a job or lost a loved one to this virus? You cant spin your way out of double-digit unemployment.

But while Trumps unorthodox approach seems fraught with risk, his detractors sense that there is a chance it works. Its not just because hes constructed a universe in which he will pass off any blame (if not China for failing to contain the virus, than Obama for not leaving him with the exact right bureaucratic infrastructure to handle it; or the media for over-hyping it; or Democratic governors for keeping their states locked down because of it).

Its also because he is giving the public something it craveswhich is hope. Indeed, Trump has been fairly explicit about this being the primary motivation behind his happy talk. The infamous exchange he had with NBCs Peter Alexander over what message hed send to frightened Americans is remembered for the fact that he petulantly responded by calling Alexander a terrible reporter. The more illuminating comment, however, came moments later.

I think its a very bad signal that you are putting out to the American people, Trump said. Theyre looking for answers and theyre looking for hope.

The presidents ability to keep Americans hopeful is limited, of course. Three million Americans filed for unemployment insurance this week. Upwards of 40 percent of the country believes the president has done a bad job managing coronavirus. And epidemiologists and medical experts warn that his desire to loosen public health measures will only prolong the crisis and, in turn, make the economic damage far worse.

Can hope withstand that? Perhaps not. But that, in Trumps mind, is a question and set of accompanying problems that he will tackle on another day.

The difference with Trump, at least in this case, is he is really looking ahead just one day. He wants to program the next episode of the TV show. And so I think he is going back to what works for him: you blame foreigners, you blame elites and experts who are out to get him, who dont know what he knows, and make it a partisan issue, said Ken Baer, a longtime Democratic operative who worked for Obama during the 2010 cycle. I think his bet is it will make him popular and get him through the next couple weeks. The question is: Whats the reality? And will it work when you have real pain?

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Donald Trump's Cure for the Coronavirus: Good Vibes - The Daily Beast